Web of Angels

by Lilian Nattel

  “Any problem finding the house?” Detective Chan asked.

  “Directions were good,” Alec said, helping Cathy take the baby out of the carrier and buckle her into the infant seat.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Cathy? Are you hungry?”

  “No thank you, ma’am.” The girl settled on the couch, Alec sitting beside her.

  “Just call me Kelly. Let me guess,” Detective Chan said. “You must be—fifteen?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Your sister is alert. Her eyes are everywhere. How old is she?”

  “She’s my niece.” This voice was sharper than Cathy’s, the face blander than Ceecee’s, eyes hooded, carefully avoiding Alec’s.

  “Oh, are you babysitting?”

  A curt nod.

  “Where are her parents?”

  “One dead, one unknown. That would be the father.”

  “I see.” Rapport building wasn’t going too well, even though Detective Chan smiled encouragingly. “What’s your favourite subject in school, Cathy?”

  Heather would have cursed and kicked if she didn’t want to be communicative. Not this kid. She was the good girl. Considerate. A polite smile. Almost Cathy’s except that the smile stretched so wide that just a shade more would be a wolfish grin. “Aren’t you too busy for this?”

  “Not in the least. I know you talked to Mrs. Lewis about something that’s bothering you, but I’d like you to tell me in your own words what’s going on for you at home.”

  “Let’s see. It’s Friday and I’m glad the weekend is coming up.” She sat on the edge of the couch, her knees butting the coffee table. “Mrs. Lewis brought me over here. I’m not really sure what all the fuss is about.” While the voice spoke nonchalantly, the hand seemed to have a life of its own, picking up the pen. In quick lines: a man holding a camera, a man on a bed, a child on the bed, mouth wide in a scream. A few more lines. Another child.

  “Can you tell me who these people are?”

  “I wanted to work on the yearbook, but the editor said I’m too young. I’d like to be the editor.” The hand moved quickly sideways, drawing arrows, scribbling words, grabbing the page and crumpling it, tossing it in the wastebasket.

  Detective Chan picked up the drawing and smoothed it out. “Let’s take a break for a few minutes. Can I get you a drink or some chips?” she asked kindly, calmly, not even a cough revealing the bile that rose up in her throat or the wish to kill the men in the drawing. You crossed the t’s, you dotted the i’s; you put such people away. The girl nodded, and the detective went to the vending machines. She came back with chips and Coke, then went to make a call.

  Unseen behind the two-way mirror, she grimaced at the voice on the other end of the line, an expert from the Child Exploitation Unit. “We have people who are specially trained for this. Why do you always think you can handle anything? You’re supposed to bring us in immediately.” The voice didn’t say, We’re probably going to have to start again from scratch.

  “The girl and her family are in my division,” Detective Chan said. She didn’t add, You’ll insist on a medical exam when we know it’s useless. Why put the kid through that? But she thought it, for this was her territory, and human beings, even when they are doing good, are territorial. So before the officers from the Child Exploitation Unit arrived, she intended to take Mrs. Lewis’s statement, staking her claim.

  For Debra’s going-away party, Harold Magee had arranged the tables in two long rows and had produced a magnificent cake. He was proudly wheeling it in on a trolley, a starched white apron tied around his waist, which was only moderately broad for a man who fancied his own baking. Rick stood next to Debra, his arm around her shoulders, smiling at their friends and neighbours, their colleagues and associates. It was a smaller crowd than at the memorial, only the people who knew them well, or believed they did, rushing here from work or home, arranging babysitters at the last minute, excited by the spontaneity, by the rightness of saying goodbye with food and wine and this cake of many layers, topped with sparklers.

  In the din of forks and glasses and bottles and I’ll have another slice, Eleanor and Dan stood away from the crowd, near the arched windows. Eleanor muttered under her breath. Dan fiddled with her new cellphone, trying to send an e-mail with an attachment on it.

  The other doctors in Debra’s practice made impromptu speeches. Someone had even managed to buy a going-away present and have it professionally wrapped with curly ribbon and bows.

  “Cathy should be here,” Debra said, smiling as she unwrapped the present.

  “She’s grounded,” Rick said.

  “We could make an exception.”

  “We could.” He squeezed her shoulder as she took her cellphone out of her bag and dialed.

  “That’s funny.” She held out the phone as if he needed to see. “No answer. Should I pop home?”

  “Just call her again in a bit. She’s probably changing a diaper.”

  First the officers from the Child Exploitation Unit arrived and then the social worker. The baby was asleep in the infant seat while they showed the cameras, the microphone, and the two-way mirror to the sullen girl. Her polite smile was gone, hands stuffed in the pockets of her camo shorts. She said she felt sick, and warned them that she might puke on Detective Armstrong’s shoes. He was grizzled and jowly, the gentler of the two officers from the unit, a big man who’d been a boxer in college. After a brief consultation with his colleagues, he stayed in the observation room with Detective Chan, watching through the two-way mirror.

  Cameras were placed so that everyone was in view as Alec and Cathy sat on the couch, the social worker in one armchair, Detective Ellison in the other. She was shorter than Alec, her face smooth because she didn’t frown or smile much, which made her look younger than she was. She wore a T-shirt, jeans and running shoes, loudly cheerful in yellow and purple. Her movements were precise and controlled, her makeup skilled, minimal. She wore no jewellery except for a wedding band and punky studs in her ears. She began with easy questions—What grade are you in? What’s your favourite subject? But the girl didn’t answer or show any reaction until the social worker asked Alec if he’d like to wait next door with the baby. Then the girl stood up so quickly that she bumped the infant seat. Linny started crying and they all had to wait until the baby was fed, her diaper changed, the girl sitting on the couch again.

  “I want Mrs. Lewis to stay.” Her voice was small, scared.

  “We can do it that way. Whatever makes you the most comfortable,” the social worker said.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Alec said, still beside her, his feet planted square on the floor.

  “Just tell us the truth about what you remember, Cathy, as best you can. If you don’t know the answer to a question, that’s fine,” the social worker said. “Don’t feel that you need to say something to please us, just say you don’t know. I’m here to ensure your welfare and your niece’s, so I might have some different questions than Maggie,” she referred to Detective Ellison by her first name.

  “I thought police officers were all tall and beefy,” the girl drawled, the wolfish smile back. “Aren’t you, like, kind of small to deal with criminals?”

  “I work out.” Detective Ellison didn’t add that she was also armed. “Do you understand the difference between truth and lies, Cathy?” she asked.

  “Well, duh.”

  “So if I say I’m wearing a tie—is that true?”

  “No.”

  “And do I have anything blue on me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?” The detective’s voice was surprised. It made the girl grin, then frown to wipe it away, for she was there to be a blank screen. Nothing would get out past her.

  “Your eyes are blue,” she said.

  “Right. Good one. Are my shoes purple?”

  “Yes. Partly. Also yellow. Should I describe you, too?” She turned to the social worker.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Frances Graf
stein said. Small of waist, broad in the hips, she wore a skirt and favoured long earrings, though babies liked to grab them. She thought the child should have been brought to the hospital. She had talked to the police administration about this before. They ought to conduct the interview in the hospital, and then take her for the exam right after. Now there would be another interruption to drive her to a different location while her anxiety was building. “Are there any drugs or drinking in the home?” she asked. Her bangles clinked as she wrote down the question.

  “I sneak wine sometimes. Don’t tell my parents, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  A fourteen-year-old could run away. A four-month-old couldn’t. The baby would have to be her biggest concern today. Like her supervisor said, keep your mind on what you can prevent, not what’s been done; you’ll feel better. “How do your parents discipline you when you’ve done something wrong?”

  “It’s pretty awful.” She paused, waiting for a reaction. When none came, she said, “I get grounded for a week. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  She smirked. “They don’t take away my computer privileges.”

  “How did your niece come to be living with you?”

  The smirk disappeared. “My sister shot herself a couple of weeks before she was due. The police came. Don’t you have a record of that?”

  “We can get it. But I’d like to hear your version.”

  “I was asleep when she did it. The shot woke me up, and I saw my mom do an emergency C-section.”

  The social worker looked at the detective, wordlessly passing the baton. Maggie Ellison stretched and cracked her knuckles. So this was a pissy kid. A smart, pissy kid who was mouthy without using any four letter words or gestures to match. Taking a coin from her pocket, she placed it on the opposite elbow, arm bent so that her fingers brushed the shoulder. Whipping her arm forward, she flipped the coin and caught it in her hand.

  “How do you do that?” The words slipped out of the girl before her mouth tightened regretfully.

  “Practice. You want to try? No? Suit yourself.” Detective Ellison crossed her t’s, she dotted her i’s—but sometimes she flipped a coin. Sometimes she threw peanuts in the air and caught them in her mouth. Anything to get a kid’s mind off her fear: she knew that behind that smartass attitude was terror. “You spoke to Mrs. Lewis about something that’s bothering you. Can you tell me about that, Cathy?”

  “What’s to tell? My parents get on my case, but don’t everybody’s?”

  “We’re not talking about everybody’s, we’re talking about yours. I know this is a hard conversation, Cathy. And believe it or not, I appreciate your being here.”

  “This is exciting. Aren’t you excited?” Her voice had gotten quiet, her eyes glinting as she got a rise out of the cop. Nothing more than a change of position and crossing her legs. But she’d got to her. “Do you dye your hair? Mine is naturally blonde. I think I’d like it black, like Detective Chan’s.”

  “My hair is naturally skunk striped. I’ve got a streak of white right here if I don’t colour it,” she said, pointing to her temple. “But let’s talk about this.” Ellison held up a sheet of paper. Cathy glanced from the paper to the camera that was recording it. “You drew this for Detective Chan this afternoon. And you wrote the name of a URL on it: www.angelsoftranquility.com.”

  “I made that up. Like it?” There was a small click from one of the cameras, or maybe it was the glass in the window frame shifting an iota. The sound was enough to make Alec start and so did the girl, shifting, not a total switch, but for a moment her eyes pleaded with his.

  In the observation room, Detective Armstrong leaned forward, bulky muscles aching with tension. “I know that website,” he said, unbuttoning his suit jacket.

  Detective Ellison was watching Cathy, but the girl’s face was guarded again. “And how about this? I see an arrow pointing to one of the figures and the word Dad.”

  “I guess I was trying to shock you. I can do better though. How about a two-year-old getting fucked? Shocked, yet?”

  “I was shocked the first time I saw it online.”

  The girl’s eyes registered surprise, and she glanced at Alec. He was surprised, too. These folks knew more than he’d expected.

  “The Internet is a good venue for criminals, but it also provides an opportunity for us to discover what they’re doing and catch them. When we do …” Ellison allowed a hint of feeling in her voice, “that is an awesome day.”

  “How can you catch someone?” The girl leaned back as if she could care less, but her fingers were drumming on her knees.

  “We look for an item in the photograph or movie to identify the location.” The detective’s voice was matter-of-fact. Alec wondered how she managed such control without being multiple. “You’d be surprised at the small things that show up when we enlarge the pictures.”

  The girl looked away and out the window. “Like what? A picture frame?” she asked.

  “Sure. Something like that.”

  Alec had been warned not to say or do anything at all, so he couldn’t be construed as leading Cathy. But he reached into his bag, took out the handful of flash drives he’d removed from the music box on Cathy’s bookshelf before they’d left, and set them on the coffee table. They were labelled: backup 1, backup 2, and on up to 6.

  “Those are mine,” Cathy said. Her fingers flexed, clenched, flexed again as she pushed a stick over to the detective. “I … I …” she stammered, her voice going high. “I … I …” She repeated the single word over and over, unable to move past it. Surely someone would stop her. “I’m on … I’m on …” The two words repeated. For a minute. And another. Why wouldn’t anyone interrupt? It must be driving them crazy. It was driving her crazy. She looked at her boyfriend’s mom, begging for release.

  “Can they come home with me?” Alec asked the social worker. “We’ve got space.”

  “Yes, if we determine that the home is unsafe for both children,” she said, “and if …”

  But she didn’t finish her sentence because the girl’s stammering gave way to a burst of speech. “I’m on there. I worked for Daddy’s camera.” Her voice was squeaky as if a child had come forward. “They’re going to kill me,” she wept. “They’ll kill me for telling.”

  “We won’t let anyone hurt you. It’s okay,” the detective said. “You’ve been very brave to speak, Cathy. I want you to know that. You should be proud of yourself for protecting your niece and keeping other kids from being hurt.”

  The girl looked up, her hair hiding her face. “I worked in the basement,” she croaked. “My mom gave me a shot so I wouldn’t make a fuss. She gave the other kids shots, too.”

  “Where does she get the needles and medication?”

  “She’s a kid doctor.”

  “I see. And has she or your father done anything inappropriate to you?” Behind the two-way mirror, Detective Armstrong made a note to call the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

  “What’s inappropriate?” the girl asked in her small high voice.

  “Let’s say anything that makes you feel uncomfortable,” the social worker said, responding instinctively to the child alter before her.

  “No. I’m comfortable when they do things.” She peeked through her hair. “I like your earrings. They’re sparkly.”

  “What kind of things?” Grafstein asked as gently as possible.

  “Like this.” She demonstrated with her mouth. “And …” She moved her hips.

  “Do you know the words for that?” When the girl nodded, Grafstein asked, “Could you write down the words for me, and who does them to you?”

  The list was long. After she read it, the social worker said thank you to the girl and then stepped out for a moment to wipe her eyes and call her supervisor. When she’d regained control, she returned to the interview room with the authority to apprehend the children into her care. “We’ll ensure that you’re at a place of safety,” she explained as she
sat down across from Cathy again. It was hard to leave home, even a bad home, but she said that Cathy could go to family—grandparents or an auntie would be ideal, someone close, familiar, providing continuity. “Is there a relative you’d like me to call?”

  “No!” The girl switched again, glaring at the social worker. They were going to sell her down the river. They were going to pass her back to people further in the darkness, who’d call her out to do what she’d always done, only harder, only worse. “You tricked me.” She’d run like her sister and like her sister if anyone stopped her, she would take herself out the one way they couldn’t follow.

  “It’s not a trick. Ms. Grafstein has no idea. Just tell her,” Alec said, his voice blunt and hard to get through the girl’s panicked shaking. “Nobody knows unless you explain.” It was risky to use her name, revealing it when she was mistrusting everyone, but he had to make her hear him. “Ceecee, just tell them.”

  The shaking abruptly stopped. Nobody spoke as the girl looked first at the detective, then at the social worker. “Ms. Grafstein, do you think that my parents are aliens or something and everyone else is hunky-dory? They’re all in it. You see the name Mitch on that sheet of paper? That’s my dad’s cousin. He’s a shrink. He takes care of kids who get upset. Neil—that’s my uncle. He handles the money. They’ve got good friends, too. Like my mom says, everybody does their job and people who do well, do well.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry. We can put you with a foster family or you can stay with Mrs. Lewis if that’s what you’d prefer. But please understand, I have to ask these questions.”

  “Okay.” Ceecee nodded. Outside the window, rain slanted down on the lake, water meeting water. “I’ll answer.”

  “Do you have any concerns about your niece?”

  “They’re getting her ready.”

  “Who and how?”

  And so, while her niece slept in the infant seat, Ceecee told everything she knew, even though she still wasn’t a 100 percent certain nobody was going to haul her into a locked and soundproof room. She told them about the equipment in the basement, the training that was done up at the cottage and the renovation that would expand it into a bigger facility. She figured they could do whatever they wanted with her, if talking would save her sister’s child from it. And only when she was sure, completely sure, that nobody was going to make her pay for the chips and the Coke with her body, did she lean against Mrs. Lewis, gripping the freckled hand as she told the final thing she had to tell.